Thieves Steal Francis Ford Coppola's Everything

News hit this morning that a laptop owned by Francis Ford Coppola had been stolen from an office in Buenos Aires, where Coppola's Zoetrope Argentina was set up to do pre-production work on the filmmaker's next project, Tetro. The robbery happened Wednesday night, involved the tying up of Zoetrope employees, one of whom was cut by a knife, and apparently also included the theft of other computer, cameras and valuables. On the specific laptop, though, was a real treasure for cinephiles: the screenplay for Tetro, which we previously learned is about Italian immigrants in Argentina. It wasn't the only copy, of course, but it was a shame. Still, the original story seemed not to be devastating for Coppola, who wasn't in the area, as he isn't expected to begin shooting until next year. As of this morning, it didn't even seem like he was going to issue a statement about the incident.

However, now Coppola has spoken to the press regarding the robbery. It turns out the computers did have some very significant items on them, including personal and family photographs, reportedly all those of his life, as well as all of his writings from the past 15 years. It would seem like an odd place to keep such personal belongings, but considering Tetro is partially autobiographical, it makes sense that the office would have access to items from Coppola's life. Of course, he probably should have only left copies of his life down in Argentina, but it's not fair to criticize his mistake at such a stressful moment. Coppola spoke on a local television station in Buenos Aires, mentioning that he would really, really like it if he could get his backup disk back. He claims it would save him years of work if he could have the lost files returned. He also stated that he would be moving the Zoetrope office out of its Palermo location and into another safer neighborhood. We'll have to wait and see if the incident has disrupted plans for Tetro's filming.